Friday, July 10, 2009

Double Dagger

Double Dagger, out of Baltimore, crosses the hoarse-throated, minimalist Dischord aesthetic with the clanking metallic funk of Gang of Four. An art-schooled, sardonically aware, unconventionally instrumented (no guitar, but a bass that sounds like one) outfit, the band was known, early on, for wrapping hard core rants around graphic design metaphors. Its name, after all, comes from a typographical symbol and two of its three principals run a design firm as their main moneymaking gig. With this third full-length, typographical metaphors have mostly been abandoned. However, you can still intuit a designer's instinct for bold strokes against deep white space in the band's massive yet stark attack.